It’s that time again to upgrade your computer. For those of you who heard about Moore’s Law where technology advances substantially every year, it seems like it’s changing at such a rate today that Moore’s Law should be rewritten on a monthly basis.

It’s understandable why many of you did not upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Let’s face it Windows Vista was way too buggy for many of us. After working with a lot of users of the years, its understandable how they have less patience with new Microsoft products than they did in the past. How dare you leave the Microsoft upgrade path? As a punishment, you can’t upgrade directly from XP to Windows 7; you have to do what’s called a clean install, which means you have to jump through some hoops to keep your old information and software applications.

Today we’ll show you a couple of quick ways to deal with the pain of installing Windows 7 on your XP machine. And afterward, Microsoft will forgive you (after you pay the licensing fees). Maybe.

Before you starts, do these things.

1. 1. Run the Windows 7 upgrade adviser. It will let you know if your computer can handle any version of Windows 7.
2. 2. Check the Windows 7 compatibility center. This is different than the upgrade adviser. It will tell you if you need to update your drivers or apps to make them work in Windows 7.
3. 3. Make a copy of your hard drive, just in case things go wrong.

Ok, now for the upgrade.

Start by gathering all the installation files for all your applications. Windows 7 will put your info in a Windows.old file for you, but it won’t reinstall your programs. Make sure you have all the CDs or if you downloaded programs, back up any install files you have on an external drive. Find all the license keys either off product boxes or old e-mails. You’ll want them all handy in a place outside the computer you’re upgrading.

The last thing before you reach for the Windows 7 disc is to download and run the Windows Easy Transfer Wizard. This will allow you to back up all your files and settings to an external hard drive. A different one than the one you imaged earlier.

Launch the wizard and make sure your external drive is plugged in. You can send your info to a network location; in this example, we’re choosing an external drive. The program will check for what can be transferred then give you the opportunity to password-protect the data. Finally, choose your external drive and begin the back up. You shouldn’t use your computer while this process is running. It will take a while to move all your info over. Once it’s done, you can set that drive aside—you won’t need it until after Windows 7 completes updating.

Finally, you’re ready to insert the Windows 7 disc. When doing a clean install, it doesn’t matter if you restart and boot off the disc or just run it from within Windows. It will give you one last chance to check compatibility. If you’re sure you don’t need that, go ahead and click “Install now.”

• It will ask if you to go online and get updates. Click yes. It will save you time later.
• Agree to the EULA (End User Licensing Agreement).
• Choose Custom install. With XP, if you choose upgrade, the installation will fail.
• Next, pick the partition or drive you’re installing Windows 7 on.

A warning box will alert you that you’re going to lose your old version of Windows and your old files will be saved in C:\Windows.old and windows will begin installing.

Your computer will reboot a few times and eventually the Wizard will return, this time running in Windows 7. At this point, you’ll be able to do things like set up a password, set security preferences, set the time and date, etc.

Finally, you’re running Windows 7! And you now for your first gift you will have device driver problems. Let’s address that. Launch the device manager by pressing Start and typing Device Manager in the search box. If you see yellow exclamation points, those devices have driver problems. The easiest way to fix them is to double-click the Item, then click the update driver button. Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

If you’re lucky, that will fix the problems. If you’re human and you still have a few devices with problems, try looking at the Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser to see if the device and its new driver are listed. If that doesn’t work, check the manufacturer’s web site.

Once you get your devices running to your satisfaction, time to install your old programs. Gather your CDs and external drives or whatever you used to store the programs earlier and get to installing. For some programs, you might want to download the latest versions.

Finally, you can restore your info. It’s all there in a folder called Windows.old, where you can manually move everything back into the proper directories under Windows 7. But we don’t have to mess with that, since we did the Easy Transfer Wizard earlier.

Make sure your external drive is connected. Then click start, choose computer, and under hard disk drives, choose the external drive where you stored your transfer info. Find the file you should have named “Windows Easy Transfer—Items from old computer” and double click.

You can choose which accounts to move, and the transfer wizard will figure out the rest. If it fails, your info is still in Windows.old. You’ll just have to move it manually.

And there you have it. You’ve upgraded, slowly and painfully, from Windows XP to Windows 7.

If you want to save a lot of this hassle, you can get a program that will move your data and your installed applications for you. These programs will restore all your info and programs again without you needing to do any dragging and dropping and gathering of discs and license keys.

Whichever way you decide to go, once you’re done, do one last thing. Image your drive again with your imaging software so you have a backup of your new Windows 7 machine.

# # #

Terry owns 3rd Eye Computer Service, a managed service provider business, and is a member of the Redwood Technology Consortium. He can be reached at 3rdeyecomputers [at] gmail [dot] com

Copyright 2010, Eureka Times-Standard Newspaper. The print version of this article first appeared in the 7/1/10 edition of the Times-Standard.